XWin design suggestion

[Harold L Hunt II]

Biju wrote:
> --- Harold L Hunt II <huntharo@msu.edu> wrote:
> 
>>Sam,
>>
>>Sam Edge wrote:
>>
>>>Harold L Hunt II <huntharo@msu.edu> wrote in
>>><3EB5B5D2.4060909@msu.edu>
>>>in gmane.os.cygwin.xfree on Sun, 04 May 2003 20:52:34 -0400:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>Yes, I have already thought of that one... and actually started some 
>>>>work on it awhile ago.  In fact, my near-term plans for XWin.exe are to 
>>>>add a couple registry settings to remember the position of the Exit 
>>>>confirmation dialog box.  If that goes well, it will only be a matter of 
>>>>time until more settings are registry enabled.
> 
> 
> I also thought of the issue with the confirmation dialog box.
> My current solution, 
> in my windows control panel I changed mouse setting to snap to default button.
> Alternate is to show the dialog box near the SysTray or near current mouse position.
> 

Another way to handle this, and I think this may be the Windows 
standard, is to always center the Exit confirmation box on the screen. 
I may just implement that.

> 
>>>At first reading I was of the opinion that stuff like this should be
>>>in POSIX-ish configuration files of one sort or another - a
>>>".something" file or directory under each user's $HOME with default
>>>values under /etc - not in the registry under
>>>"HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/<Organization>/<Application>" and
>>>"HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/ditto."
>>>
>>>On the other hand, I imagine that many people use XWin.exe as a sort
>>>of container application, with everything Cygwin/remote-X-client
>>>"inside" the X session/window(s) and everything Windows-y outside, so
>>>things like the confirmation dialog box are in some sense "outside"
>>>the POSIX realm.
>>>
>>>Oh heck. Indecision. Must be the hour of the day and the red wine. ;-D
>>>
>>
>>I have spent a bit of time thinking of the different options here as 
>>well.  In the end I think that this is a Windows application, not a *NIX 
>>application, so it should follow Windows conventions not *NIX 
>>conventions.  That's the way that I will code it... of course, patches 
>>that implement functionality to read a .config file would probably be 
>>applied, but I don't think I will be writing that code anytime soon :)
>>
>>Harold
>>
> 
> 
> Using .config file in users $HOME dir we can reduce dependency (so called vendor locking effect)
> on MS-Win and also it will be like other *nix program. 
> Saving settings in a file will also make it easy for copying if there is lot of users and/or PC
> 

Okay, let me re-word that for you to see if it makes any sense, "Here at 
Ford Motor Racing, we would like to use a generic transmission design to 
prevent vendor lock-in on our cars."  Huh... seems kinda dumb.  What is 
the point to avoiding using Windows-specific features when we are 
building an app that is only for Windows.  Occasionally people have 
tried to sugggest that Cygwin/XFree86 doesn't always have to be Windows 
only, which just doesn't fit with my vision, primarily because it 
doesn't make any sense.

So, I am going to have to see a much better reason than avoiding using 
Windows features for using something other than the registry.  Sure, we 
could use an XML config file... but that introduces another dependency 
on XML libraries, which I really don't want to have.

Any other ideas?

Harold